The Wireline Bureau seeks comment through Aug. 19, replies Sept. 3, on NCTA's petition for declaratory ruling (see 2007170023), said a public notice Monday in docket 17-84. The group asks the FCC to mandate pole owners share in the cost of pole replacements in unserved areas, give pole attachment complaints for unserved areas prioritized placement on its accelerated docket, and order pole owners complete replacement within a specified time.

FCC failure to extend the comment cycle on Charter's request for a May sunset of conditions from its buy of Time Warner Cable and Bright House (see 2007090009) could prevent Entertainment Studios Networks from providing evidence of Charter’s “propensity to discriminate” on race, said ESN in a letter filed Friday in docket 16-197. ESN wants the comment deadline postponed until Aug. 18. ESN seconded Newsmax’s arguments that the original transaction order requires the August date. “ESN intends to file detailed information about Charter’s stated desire to make business decisions in discriminatory ways, not just based on economics, but on race and ethnicity.” The letter noted evidence raised in ESN's lawsuit against the cable provider of alleged statements from Charter personnel telling African American protesters to “get off welfare” and allegations Charter CEO Tom Rutledge “refused to engage with ESN’s African American CEO, Byron Allen, referring to Allen as 'Boy' and telling Allen that he needed to change his behavior.” If the FCC allows Charter to discriminate in interconnection agreements, “what would prevent Charter from exercising that discretion to the detriment of African-American, Latinx, Asian, or other minority-owned businesses,” ESN asked. “Decisions on which networks to carry are based on business considerations, such as cost, quality and uniqueness of content, and ongoing customer demand. Race played no role whatsoever in our programming decision regarding these networks and we will continue to vigorously defend against these false claims,” emailed a Charter spokesperson. "Charter offers programming services produced by minority-owned companies, including several owned by Byron Allen."

NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service is available on Vizio's SmartCast TVs in free and premium ($4.99 monthly) versions, said the TV maker Wednesday. Viewers can upgrade Peacock Premium to ad-free for $5 more a month.

FCC cable leased access rules face big constitutional issues, and a changed video market "will likely hasten [their] demise" someday, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly tweeted Tuesday. The tweet followed a Free State Foundation blog post by Policy Studies Director Seth Cooper saying the leased access rules update on the commission's July agenda (see 2006240058) sidesteps the First Amendment problems with the rules. The FCC says in the draft order deciding on the constitutionality of the rules mandated by Congress isn't the commission's role, but Cooper said that shouldn't stop lawmakers or the courts "from acting within their own roles to address the glaring First Amendment problem." NCTA said Charter, Comcast, Cox and NCTA representatives cited administrative burdens of the leased access rules regime and the Supreme Court's Janus decision saying compelling the subsidization of speech of another private party raises First Amendment concerns, in a docket 07-42 ex parte filing recapping a discussion with an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr.

It's commendable that streamer Pluto TV has dropped its ask for a one-year waiver from IP captioning requirements (see 1906270061), but it's still not compliant on several platforms and the FCC should set firm deadlines if it doesn't take enforcement action. That's according to Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Inc.'s docket 11-154 posting Wednesday. Pluto TV last month withdrew its waiver petition and said it has "redoubled its efforts" to be fully compliant with captioning on all platforms.

Charter opted to end ads contested by AT&T that mentioned the cable provider's 5G mobile service, the FTC said last week, referring to a National Advertising Division referral. With the marketing discontinued, the FTC said staff won't take further action. Charter emailed Tuesday that its Spectrum Mobile service offers "customers the best speeds at the best value and the letter references a process issue with NAD and is not related to our offerings. ... Charter is proud of our 5G services and our ads and disclosures are consistent with industry standards."

Assertions that integrated receiver/decoder equipment costs should be excluded from the C-band transition lump sum payments to MVPD earth station operators wrongly claim MVPDs that replace earth stations with fiber-based video delivery still have to employ IRDs, MobiTV said in an FCC docket 18-122 posting Monday: MVPDs that use MobiTV as a fiber-centric replacement to their C-band earth stations will still get video content while not using IRDs. The IPTV service said the C-band order seems to offer earth station operators a lump sum that could be used on alternatives such as fiber-based solutions, and the commission should be technology neutral and open to alternatives that don't require IRDs at local earth station sites.

Miracle Attainment's application for certification to operate an open video system (see 2007060029) was granted, said an FCC Media Bureau order Friday.

Broadcast and cable interests disagree whether FCC leased access rules are on constitutionally shaky grounds. Despite NCTA arguments, the Supreme Court's recent National Institute of Family & Life Advocates and Reed decisions clearly don't support cable claims of leased access rules being content based, NAB said in a docket 17-105 posting Thursday. It said MVPDs still have a big market share in many designated market areas, and courts have cited such as a reason for sustaining program access and programming discrimination provisions against First Amendment challenges. NAB was responding to an NCTA posting on a meeting it, Comcast, Charter and Cox had with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and the regular commissioners and Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey. The cablers said they had "strong support" for the leased access draft order on July's agenda (see 2006250062) and its finding the constitutional foundation for the leased access rules being "in substantial doubt." They said that finding is not only the FCC's but also court precedent.

If there's any doubt about the meaning of Section 543 of the Cable Act, barring state or federal cable rate regulation, the court should narrowly construe the provision against preemption, because the Supreme Court has historically been quite clear on that point, Maine told U.S. District Court in Bangor Tuesday in a reply in support of its motion to dismiss (in Pacer, docket 20-cv-00168). It said Charter Communications, challenging the state requiring prorated refunds when cable customers end service partway through a billing cycle (see 2005210004), hasn't shown the state law in any way alters the rate structure of cable services being provided. Charter didn't comment Wednesday.